


With the light coming down over your shoulders

by levendis



Category: Good Omens (TV), Good Omens - Neil Gaiman & Terry Pratchett
Genre: Comedy, Idiocy as Plot Point, M/M, Misunderstandings, Other, Pining
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-21
Updated: 2019-08-21
Packaged: 2020-09-23 06:09:15
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,694
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20335369
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/levendis/pseuds/levendis
Summary: Crowley has accidentally invented a boyfriend.





	With the light coming down over your shoulders

**Author's Note:**

> a response to this post: https://sleepymccoy.tumblr.com/post/187075652409 
> 
> "Crowley accidentally saying “i love you” as he hangs up on a phone call to Aziraphale then having to spend the next three years pretending to be in a relationship cos “sorry angel it was automatic… cos i say it so much to my… boyfriend???”

It’s an accident, is the thing. Crowley has imagined a variety of ways in which he might confess his undying love to Aziraphale: on a park bench, in a rain storm, by the sea or before the screen in the cinema. Bold as brass or bravely tentative or the crux of it yanked out of him by some outside force, the weight of the words so much in his chest and his throat that it will come out, it must come out, by hook or by crook -

But no. Aziraphale’s been wittering on about people who bring coffee into his bookshop (“And then sit in the chairs! With books! It isn’t a library, for heaven’s sake! And what if they get their frappuchinos all over a first edition? Their sticky scone-hands on anything rarer than a trade paperback?”)

“I found croissant crumbs in a copy of _A Separate Peace_ and you’re the only one who’d ever be tedious enough to crack that particular spine,” Crowley says. He checks his watch, and then the clock on his mantle set to hell’s time, and stretches, imagining the bones in his body settling perfectly into place. “Would keep chatting but there’s wiles to do. Crimes to…sin, you know.”

“Crowley-” The air of a slightly put-on, slightly performative snit at being cut off. At not being paid attention to when he very much welcomes the attention.

Crowley rolls his eyes and angles his phone so he can’t hear whatever Aziraphale’s protest is, and he casually, absentmindedly, and very accidentally says: “Love you, bye.”

He hangs up, and he stares at his phone, and he wonders: did that actually happen? Time sort of slows down and his brain starts going off like a Catherine wheel and he texts, very quickly:

_sorry about that force of habit _

From what, from imagining bequeathing his legendary, unholy, majestic and occult love upon Thee Angele Aziraphale, Principality, Guardian of the Eastern Gate? How the stars would align, how they would breathe as one, as the sun would rise over their clumsy attempts at human form through which their inner beings could not help but spill and their love would form new constellations, new stars in the sky above -

_i have a boyfriend and i say that as goodbye so. just came out whoops ha ha lol._

Crowley hits ‘send’ and then dunks his phone onto the hardwood floor of his flat so hard the battery comes out. “Fuck!” he exclaims. “Fuck.”

A cycas shivers in sympathy.

“Fuck off,” he says. “You’re a plant, what the fuck do you - mind your own business, yeah?”

* * *

The next time they meet, it’s slightly awkward. Crowley has a variety of conversations planned out in his head, about his new fictional boyfriend or about how he was just _overcome with the sheer radiant power of his love - as paltry and damaged as it might be, coming from a demon_ \- but Aziraphale affords him a single odd and searching look before getting happily lost in a slice of banoffee pie and a discussion about gnostic imagery in young adult adventure novels.

“Good night, dear,” Aziraphale says, as they finally part, after a polite glass of wine and a minute or ten of awkward pauses. His voice framing the “dear” just so, or maybe Crowley’s imagining that.

“Yeah,” Crowley says, eloquently. “Deuces.” He pops a peace sign and all but backflips out of the restaurant, landing neatly in his Bentley and not driving home so much as he punches the dashboard and Wills himself into the parking spot closest to his flat.

* * *

The next time after that they are in fact on a park bench, because they are on park benches a lot, and Crowley scrolls through his tape reel of fantasies about how he kisses Aziraphale on a park bench, on his mental Moviola. How he asks his hand in marriage on a park bench, or offers a slight, repressed admission of affection on a park bench, or sucks his cock on a park bench. You _know._

They’re on a park bench, and Crowley is angrily feeding the ducks, and Aziraphale asks, in a pinched/pained/posh sort of voice, he asks,

“So this boyfriend of yours. Care to tell me about him?”

Crowley flings a fistful of birdseed into the pond. “His name is.” Fuck. “Sven.”

“Sven,” Aziraphale repeats carefully. “And he is - ”

Consider the seeds. Consider the gravel beneath your feet. Consider, perhaps, the nearby tree into which you might throw your entire body at mach speed, killing you on impact. “He’s an accountant,” Crowley says breezily.

Aziraphale stiffens, imperceptibly.

“Human,” he reassures. “Just. The business, you know, that they do. With the money. Numbers and things. In the office.” He pantomimes typing on the computer.

Aziraphale is less stiff at that, but still off, and Crowley gamely takes this opportunity to widen and lengthen and deepen his grave. “He’s handsome. Very fit. Does, uh, rugby.” He blinks back the tears threatening his eyes.

“Rugby,” Aziraphale echoes, casting a pointed look down at his corporation, which last saw a sport in ancient Greece. Long since gone a comfortable sort of soft.

“Just a laugh,” Crowley croaks out. “You know how it is. Humans.”

Aziraphale glances - that queer timid thing he does when he’s feeling both bold and unsure - flicks his gaze over to Crowley and then back, head resolutely down and examining the hands clasped in his lap. “Here today and gone tomorrow,” he says.

“Right.” Crowley nods, as if either of them had just done anything approaching meaningful communication.

* * *

So Sven’s a bit of a rake. Bit of a cad, really - Crowley is somewhat guilty of inventing arguments. Perhaps he winds up staying the night in Aziraphale’s bookshop. Perhaps Aziraphale makes him a resentful cup of tea, and does not touch him, does not say the kind gentle terms of endearment, does not vibrate cheerfully in his general direction. Perhaps he lies sleepless in the moldy corner by several translations of _Beowulf _before the sun rises and he pretends his phone vibrates and it’s Sven, calling him back home.

“He’s - it’s been rough lately, is all,” Crowley improvises. “Tourist season, you know how it is.”

“Ah,” Aziraphale says.

“Chefs, you know,” Crowley says, and as he’s saying it he remembers that he’d invented some sort of…business lore.

Aziraphale brightens, conscious brain clearly elsewhere. “Oh! A chef? You must introduce me. This city is doing some fascinating things with food, I would be honored -”

_Gotta go, _Crowley pantomimes, pointing at his phone. He moonwalks out the door, forgets about his car, and keeps going until he hits the tube, at which point he blacks out, and comes to as they pull into Tottenham Court Road.

* * *

It keeps happening. “Busy day at the vet’s,” he explains. He’s late because he got distracted checking himself out in the mirror, hands smoothing down the wrinkles adorning his thighs. “All the - kittens, and things.”

They’re in a diner, American-themed, neon and linoleum and the smell of cheap disinfectant. Aziraphale’s already mostly through a slice of pie, the hour and his look of determined discomfort indicating that it isn’t his first of the evening.

“Quite a Renaissance man, this Sven,” he says, savagely sawing off a forkful of cherry and sugar ooze and brittle crust. He holds Crowley’s gaze as he bites down, chews, swallows. “I should like to meet him, I think. Anyone so impressive as all that, and to catch your attention to boot-” He stops himself, looking a touch strangled, and redirects his attention to his plate.

It’s weird, and kind of hot, and mostly awkward. Would that he could go home to Sven tonight, and unleash all his terrible yearning into the firm muscled torso of an accountant/chef/veterinarian. As it is, he just slips the spoon into his coffee cup and watches as Aziraphale orders another slice of pie out of spite.

(Apple, this time, because of course. The waitress winks and Crowley sinks and Aziraphale prissily rearranges himself, settling his anger away.)

* * *

Crowley shows up with a bebop record, which is the opposite of flowers. He slides it onto the turn table, taps the needle over and into place in the groove. Aziraphale is there but to the side, pointedly.

“We broke up,” Crowley says, nonchalantly. As if he hasn't been practicing this since he first invented a boyfriend from whole cloth. “Me and Seth. Sam. Sven. Wotsit.” The slinky sultry rock and roll of T Rex fills the space. He is not being subtle, here. Bang a gong, get it on. “So. Yanno.”

“Ah,” Aziraphale intones. He peers at Crowley intensely over his glasses. “I’m sorry?” He’s not sorry, not even pretending.

“Yeah. You know. Humans.” Crowley lounges against a bookshelf, micro-shifting through poses. He’s been here before, in his head. Louche and lax and presumably well-fucked, draped over a stack of romance novels and saying, saying, you know, hey, you might be well-read, but you’ve never read me, so c'mon -

Aziraphale coughs out a laugh, with just a touch of knowing embarrassment. Crowley smirks back. They have a moment. The moment ends. Next time, maybe. Next time he’ll say something. Next time one of them will - anyway. They share the space before begging off. Neither of them say anything more than polite. Crowley pushes a firm, insistent hand down on himself, down through his throat.

Later, maybe. The record crackle, the settling of the floorboards, the awkward kindness of a friend. He squints the approximation of a smile, and Aziraphale responds in kind. Clean slate, next time, that has to count for something.

(Which isn't to say he couldn't still do with a dumb fiction of a boy-toy right about now, as he slips quietly back into his flat, once the evening ends. Key in the lock as the sun threatens to rise through the heavy curtains. He shucks clothes as he sways towards the bed, unfortunately and brightly alone. Itchy, yearning, half-drunk on the night's wine and his own snaking whip of arousal. Tired, tired. On the market, as they say. He plunks gracelessly onto the mattress. Til next time.)


End file.
